Murder accused 'denied he had remarried'

A man accused of murdering his first wife and trying to kill his second denied he had remarried, a court heard.

Simone Banarjee, who was dating Malcolm Webster, said he told her he had not considered remarrying after his first wife died. Ms Banarjee told the High Court in Glasgow she met Webster in a corridor at a hospital in Oban on August 5, 2004 while working as a theatre manager.

Asked by Derek Ogg QC, prosecuting, what her impression of him was, Ms Banarjee said: "Very nice, well-spoken gentleman. Well dressed; a delight to meet someone like that.

"A fine, understanding person is how he came across."

Ms Banarjee, 41, said she became romantically involved with Webster, 51, in December 2005 after her previous relationship ended.

Webster is charged with murdering Claire Morris in Aberdeenshire in May 1994 and attempting to murder Felicity Drumm in New Zealand five years later as part of a plot to pocket almost a million pounds in insurance payouts.

It is alleged he murdered 32-year-old Ms Morris, 32, by drugging her, putting her in a car, driving it off the road and torching it while she was unconscious in the vehicle.

Webster, from Guildford in Surrey, stands accused of fraudulently obtaining more than £200,000 after cashing in a series of insurance policies following her death.

It is also alleged he intended to marry Ms Banarjee bigamously, and told her he was terminally ill with leukaemia when he was actually in good health.

Webster denies the seven charges against him, which run to 11 pages on the indictment. It is claimed he induced Ms Banarjee to make a will leaving everything to him.

It is also alleged he falsely told her that he was having chemotherapy for chronic lymphatic leukaemia. Ms Banarjee is the first witness to give evidence in the trial, which started on Tuesday and is expected to last four months.

On Tuesday, the court heard Webster, a qualified nurse, had not received treatment for cancer at the Royal Marsden Hospital, the Beatson Clinic or the Nuffield Health Glasgow Hospital.

Webster is further charged with deliberately crashing his car in Auckland, New Zealand, in February 1999, in an attempt to kill second wife Felicity, a passenger in the car at the time.

He did so as part of an attempt to fraudulently obtain more than £750,000 in separate insurance payouts, prosecutors allege.

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